Biggles in the Bahamas
Biggles in the Bahamas was a comic strip story which was appeared in the TV Express Annual 1962, the last Biggles comic strip in the series to be published. The strip was drawn by Ron Embleton. A French translation of the story was later carried in issue 41 of the comic magazine Rin Tin Tin published by SAGE from July 1963 under the title Biggles aux îles Bahamas (Biggles in the Bahamas). In 2002, Belgian publisher Miklo reissued this and other stories in an album entitled Sabotage à Canberra, part of its Biggles Heritage series. The original strips on TV Express did not carry a story title. The French translation in Rin Tin Tin called it Biggles aux îles Bahamas and this title is also used in the Miklo album. The bibliography in the Miklo volume contained an English title Biggles in the Bahamas, a fairly direct translation, so this title is used for this article. In 2007, Express Publications published various TV Express Biggles stories in a very limited edition of only 30 copies but this story was not included.This French webpage contains good information about the TV Express Comics. Synopsis While flying over the Caribbean, Biggles, Ginger and Bertie receive a mayday call from an aircraft. They help in the subsequent search but are increasingly puzzled when the crash can't be found and there is no trace of who had chartered the plane. Plot (Click on expand to read) Biggles, Ginger and Bertie are flying in an Auster in near the Bahamas Islands when they pick up an S.O.S. being sent from an aicraft. The pilot tells them he and his crew can't bale out as their parachutes had been tampered with. He says they are thirty miles off Bahamas but doesn't give any specifics. Biggles and co. set up a base at Andros Island and participate in the search and rescue operations over the next few days but find nothing. Bertie has been doing ground checks and learns that a plane had been chartered to carry furniture from Tampa, Florida to Haiti. The charterer is one Eddie Roswell, who is building a house there. But further checks reveal that there is no such person and the furniture had not been insured. Meanwhile, Biggles and Ginger spot a boat, the Tropicana doing diving operations during one of their patrols. A secretary at their office tells them it belongs to one Professor Milo Raleigh, a scientist from one of the big American universities and the boat was based at Cat Island. Biggles wants to play a hunch and set out in a boat with scuba gear to find the Tropicana. After going on board, Biggles tell Raleigh that he believes the missing aircraft came down in his area and would like his help in the search. The Professor is willing to cooperate, but the presence of sharks requires that divers go down in a diving cage which can only take one at a time. Raleigh invites Ginger to go down first. After Ginger is in the water, Raleigh grabs the cable release of the winch and warns Biggles to keep still or he will release it. He also orders Bertie to come on board. The two are then locked below decks. Through the porthole Biggles sees Raleigh and his two accomplices load the police boat with what looks like crates of gold. Then they depart. Biggles and Bertie break out of the locker. Raleigh has slipped the cable, leaving Ginger stranded at the bottom of the sea. He only has five minutes of oxygen left. Sharks are all around but there is no choice. Biggles dons scuba gear, grabs a speargun and goes down. He spears one of the sharks--its dead body attracts all the others, allowing Biggles to free Ginger from the cage and bring him up to the boat. Ginger is safe but Biggles hates the idea of letting the criminals escape. But Bertie has taken care of that. When he had been ordered on board the Tropicana, he had taken the precaution of opening the fuel discharge cock. The criminals cannot go far without fuel. The Professor and his accomplices are easily picked up by a police patrol boat. It turned out Raleigh and his accomplices had made a bullion robbery in the U.S. and had planned to fly the loot out packed as crates of furniture, faking an aircrash on the way. Biggles announces that the air police crew have two weeks leave, but Ginger is content to just sit by the beach--the others can swim if they like but he has had enough of the sea for a long, long time. Characters The Special Air Police *Biggles *Ginger Hebblethwaite *Bertie Lissie Others *Milo Raleigh *Charlie - accomplice of Raleigh *Steve - accomplice of Raleigh Aircraft *Auster J1 Autocrat Places Visited *Bahamas **Little Abaco Island **Andros Island Research notes Illustrations Editions References and external links Category:Derivative works